


The Caramel Corn Job

by Lirelyn



Series: The Long Slow Yes Job [7]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Getting Together, It's time y'all, Kissing, Multi, POV Alec Hardison, POV Eliot Spencer, mostly fluff partially angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:47:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23855584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirelyn/pseuds/Lirelyn
Summary: It's about patience, and attention, and timing.Hardison's been courting Eliot for months, and Eliot is finally ready to say yes.
Relationships: Alec Hardison/Eliot Spencer, Alec Hardison/Parker/Eliot Spencer
Series: The Long Slow Yes Job [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1672750
Comments: 77
Kudos: 354





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here it is, the last planned installment of this series. I miss writing it already.
> 
> This fic can stand alone, but will probably mean more if you've read the earlier parts of the series.

“It’s been too long.” Hardison stared at the street camera feeds, where no quick black-clad figure showed to tell him Parker was out of the building and safe. “It’s been way too long.”

“Hey,” said Eliot. “It’s Parker. Best thief in the world. She’ll make it out.”

Hardison nodded, and re-checked his visuals of her exit path for the seventeenth time. Everything was clear; he’d made sure of that, hacking all the traffic lights in a three-block radius to keep that side of the building empty. It would be smooth sailing once she emerged from the door, but she needed to emerge from the door. She should have been out twenty minutes ago, even allowing for unforeseen problems.

“Maybe I can —”

“You can’t!” Eliot snapped. “You do anything to try to get eyes in there, they’ll know something’s up.”

“I know. I know, I know, I know.” They’d talked it out in excruciating detail before Parker went in. Hardison ran his hands over his face, checked the exit path again, checked every camera he could safely access in the vicinity of the behemoth building. There were no signs of any disturbance. There wouldn’t be. If Parker was discovered, it would be dealt with quickly and with finality within those walls. They probably wouldn’t ever find a body.

They’d both argued against her going in alone, and she’d won the argument only by being unassailably correct. The security system wasn’t designed to keep out someone like her; they didn’t house the kinds of things your typical cat burglar would want to steal. Slipping through vents and across ceilings should be a cakewalk. Having someone hack their way into the information systems, or try and grift their way through the front door: that was going to be near-impossible. Parker had laid out the dozen ways that either of them could endanger her just by being in the vicinity, and she was right about all of them, so they’d grudgingly agreed to stay at the hotel-room field office, ten miles from the target.

Parker was more than capable of taking on this heist alone, and she never relied on luck, but not relying on good luck wasn’t the same as being proof against a relentless enough string of bad luck. And this would be a very, very bad place to get unlucky. This mark was only a legit corporation in the thinnest possible sense of the word. Information security was their entire business and that meant nothing got out that wasn’t supposed to, including a person, if she happened to be discovered on their premises.

Twenty-three minutes. Twenty-three minutes past the latest time they’d reasonably expected to see her re-appear, and Hardison couldn’t control the shaking in his hands as he clicked from one empty view to another. If she never came out, if she was never gonna come out, it would happen just like this. Just silence and empty views and the minutes ticking by until neither of them could pretend there was any hope.

_Not today,_ he begged silently, to Nana’s God and anyone else who might be listening. _Not today, it might end like this someday but not today, please, not yet._

Eliot’s hand closed over his, stilling its shaking. Hardison looked over at him. His face was like stone, but his hand squeezed Hardison’s tightly. “Wait,” Eliot said. Hardison nodded, tried to slow his panicked breaths. He opened his fingers, and Eliot’s slid between them without hesitation. They held tight, Eliot’s warm solid hand interlocked with his, and that was a minor miracle itself, Hardison thought, so just one more, one more...

“Woooohoooo!” came a gleeful shriek over the comms, and they both leapt to their feet. She wasn’t on the view of the planned exit route, so Hardison flipped furiously through the camera feeds until he found her, a black fleck plummeting neatly down a corner of the building. It wasn’t the way out they had planned, but she was out.

“Babe!” Hardison shouted. “Oh my god. Your car’s one block north and east — are you okay?”

“I’m great!” she sang back. She hit the ground and started moving toward the car. He switched camera views to follow her. No one seemed to be chasing, and in another minute she was at her getaway car. “I got the drive! Heading your way.”

His entire existence had been reduced to that one blurry figure on the screens, so it was only now he realized how he and Eliot were standing: sides pressed together, fairly clinging to each other, Eliot’s arm twisted behind his back and gripping his neck tightly. Eliot’s eyes were closed and the naked, agonized relief on his face went like a bolt through Hardison.

“She’s out,” Hardison whispered, as much a reassurance to himself that this was the reality they were in, the one where Parker was safe and headed home. Eliot’s eyes opened and they were still shadowed, haunted by the other one. For a moment they shared it, the awful fear and loss, but Hardison couldn’t stay there. “She’s out,” he said again, more insistently.

Eliot nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he said. Then a grin split his face, and he pulled him in for a kiss.

This was starting to feel like a dream, but Hardison wasn’t about to question it. He kissed back, taking in the sharp salt, rough stubble, sweet heat, and Eliot was pulling him closer, pressing deeper into his mouth. Every second he was expecting the turn, the push away, but it didn’t come. Strong arms were firm around his back. Eliot was reaching for him, drawing him in, lips and tongue saying _yes, this; yes, more._

“So what, you guys just been making out the whole time I was in there?” Parker’s voice sounded in their ears, and they broke apart. Eliot’s eyes looked a little startled, a little wary, but he was still grinning and not pushing away, and Hardison laughed shakily.

“Yeah baby, we knew you had it under control. How else we gonna pass the time?” His voice trembled wildly, and his knees were going too, and Eliot half-helped, half-pushed him to sit down.

“I did tell you I could handle it.”

“I know you did. Never doubted you for a second.” He leaned back; his lungs seemed to be running on something other than air. Eliot’s hand steadied him again, strong and firm on his shoulder.

“Well I’m away clean, should be back in fifteen or twenty minutes, so you two can go back to kissing or whatever.”

“Hurry home, mama.”

  
  


“I’m gonna sweep downstairs, make sure there’s no surprises when she gets back,” said Eliot.

“Okay,” said Hardison, his eyes full of questions. Eliot smiled widely, hoped that was enough to answer some of them, and got the hell out of there.

Okay. Okay. He hadn’t planned that, but he’d been mostly ready for it, so that was one up on the last time he’d kissed Hardison. And he hadn’t managed to plan any kind of move, he’d just kept stalling and telling himself another moment would be better, so maybe it was best this way. He just needed a second. He headed to the downstairs lobby men’s room, the first place he could think of where Hardison wouldn’t have a security camera view. Just a second, to let his face do whatever it was gonna do while he got adjusted to the new territory he’d jumped into.

The restroom was empty. Eliot leaned against the wall and let out the longest breath he could. He felt like he hadn’t really been breathing since about half an hour after Parker went in. Logic be damned, they were never, ever, ever letting her go in alone like that again. He lifted his hands. There it was; the shakes.

He almost wished he’d stayed upstairs with Hardison, pulled him to the bed and fucked right then and there. That would have taken care of the rest of their adrenaline. But no. It would have been rushed, and clumsy, and he was so keyed up it would all have ended up a blur in his memory, and he wanted. He wanted to remember it clearly. Their first time. Oh God. Okay.

He turned on the hot-water tap at the sink and let it run over the back of his hand. Not hot enough to burn, but enough to focus him, give his nerves something else to occupy them. He was in it now, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t _terrified,_ but it was the good kind of terrified. The kind that meant you were doing something important, reminded you to stay sharp.

Speaking of staying sharp. He really did want to do a security sweep, just in case. Parker might laugh, but he wasn’t taking any more chances. He went out into the lobby. He winked at the first security camera he saw, just in case Hardison was watching.

Parker strolled in right when he’d finished his sweep, and he’d found nothing worrying so he scooped her into his arms. She squeaked, but he just squeezed her tighter, lifting her feet off the ground, her small body hard and solid against him. He held her there for another long breath, deep in and out, and then put her back down.

“Go be with him,” he said. “You scared him to death.”

She searched his face. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m going down to the gym.” He hadn’t known that till he said it but it was absolutely what he needed right now. His body was screaming for some kind of action, and there was no one to punch.

“Are you sure? You —”

“I’m fine. Really,” he said a little louder, for Hardison’s benefit too. “Go show him you’re alive. I’ll join you for dinner.”

When the elevator doors closed on her he thought with a pang that he should have gone with her, made sure she got to the room safe, which just went to show that he was still in a bad way. Parker could handle herself, and there wasn’t any reason to expect danger here. Still, he stayed in the lobby and listened until he heard a door open and Hardison’s voice, doubled slightly as it came through both their comms: _Parker, babe, oh my god,_ so fervently it ached.


	2. Chapter 2

Eliot was humming to himself while he chopped vegetables. Hardison didn’t think he even knew he did that, and he didn’t ever plan on pointing it out, for fear he’d stop. He only did it when he was relaxed and happy, which meant this was as good a moment as he was gonna get.

Something was different now, he was sure of that. He just wasn’t sure quite what. That kiss for one thing: fueled by adrenaline and relief, just like the first time, but this time it had felt like Eliot was _there_ for it. And Eliot kept throwing him these glances that were warm and conspiratorial, and while those did very pleasant things to his insides he still didn’t know exactly what they meant.

Parker and Eliot might be able to communicate telepathically, but Hardison needed actual words, and they could both grow old and die waiting for Eliot to come up with any.

“So,” he said, missing ‘casual’ by a mile, “you ever gonna kiss me when you _didn’t_ just think one of us was dead?”

The rhythmic chopping faltered for a second, then resumed. The humming stayed stopped, though, and Hardison fought the urge to backpedal. He had gone months without pushing another conversation like this on Eliot and if nothing else, he felt he was due. So he swallowed down the fear that he’d ruined everything by pushing too hard, and waited.

Eliot didn’t look up and he did an even worse job of sounding casual than Hardison had. “You ever gonna kiss _me_ when I didn’t start it?”

Hardison nearly knocked the chair over getting to his feet. “Yes! Hell yes, I —”

Eliot held up the large chopping knife, its meticulously sharpened point angled in Hardison’s direction. “Not while I’m holding a knife. _Never_ while I’m holding a knife.”

“Right. Okay. Good rule, I’ll remember it.” He waited a minute, thinking maybe Eliot was going to put down the knife, but he went back to chopping, and when he was done with the celery he grabbed the carrots he had cleaned and waiting. He caught Hardison’s eye.

“Dinner’s not gonna make itself,” he said sternly, but there was a little smile back of his eyes, and in a few seconds he started humming again.

***

After dinner Parker said goodnight to him while Eliot was washing dishes. 

“You’re not staying?” It was post-job tradition now, dinner and movie night at Hardison’s. He couldn’t even remember when they’d shifted from decompressing separately to decompressing together, but now he couldn’t really feel like a job was over until they’d all gotten to sit together and just _be_ for an evening.

“Not tonight,” said Parker, and her eyes sparkled as she kissed him before leaving.

All things considered, it was a pretty easy guess what that sparkle meant, but he was getting really tired of guessing. And not thrilled to be the third-most-informed person about his own damn love life. He couldn’t begrudge Parker the knowledge, whether she’d obtained it telepathically, deductively, or just by asking, but he’d asked too, and if only one of them was gonna get an answer it seemed like it should have been him.

He wasn’t going to go join Eliot in the kitchen. He wasn’t about to set them up for an evening of standing around like awkward teenagers waiting for the other one to make a move. He’d already shot his shot that day, and been deflected, and if Eliot wanted anything to happen he could damn well take the bare minimum step of coming to find Hardison.

He went to his office with the giant computer desk and began completely flubbing the next level of his game. His concentration was wrecked, and he couldn’t stop listening for any sign that Eliot had come out of the kitchen, whether he was coming to find Hardison or leaving the apartment.

He went back to the same save point a third time, and then sighed and shut the game down. He couldn’t do it, was the problem. He couldn’t stay annoyed for any length of time, and he wanted to be with Eliot way more than he wanted to stand on any kind of principle.

Still, it was a small, golden triumph when he met Eliot in the hallway, walking his way. He’d been coming to find him after all.

“Well hey,” said Hardison; not the smoothest opening but he didn’t feel even the tiniest bit smooth.

“Hey,” said Eliot.

 _Next time, I swear to God I’m gonna fall in love with someone who speaks in full sentences._ But he didn’t really mean it because he was fascinated by something in Eliot’s face, a hint of something soft, almost shy, behind his stoic look. He’d seen it before when Eliot was on the grift, but there it was pushed forward like a mask; here it was held back like something needing protection, and he wanted to see more of it very badly.

“You’re not holding a knife right now,” said Hardison.

“No, I’m not.” Almost a whisper.

He stepped forward slowly, leaving plenty of time for Eliot to back away or to say _What the hell are you doing,_ but he didn’t, he just stood waiting, his eyes never leaving Hardison’s face.

It felt like someone else’s hand that came up to cup Eliot’s jaw, someone else that was leaning in as the blue eyes slipped shut. But it was his lips that touched Eliot’s, the warm press familiar but also new. They had never kissed gently before. He touched and touched again, feeling the shapes, the soft responsive movements.

Maybe he did okay without words sometimes too, because he _got_ it, even though he didn’t get it. There was something here that Eliot needed. He’d only imagined their being together as hard and fierce, because that was how Eliot was. And the thought of _hard and fierce_ still made him weak in the best way — but this, this was a revelation, this softness and openness, something Eliot couldn’t offer up directly but could hold just within reach to see if Hardison would take it.

He took it. He kissed him with as much tenderness as he’d ever shown Parker, holding his face in both hands, slow and sweet. And Eliot opened to him, melted into him, so warm and soft he was hardly recognizable.

“Eliot,” Hardison whispered against his mouth, needing a reminder that this was still them, not two other people who had taken over their bodies. Eliot pulled back and looked at him and there it was, not hidden and not a mask, just open and there for him.

“Alec,” he answered, and it was a shock, an ache, a wave crashing over him. He’d never heard that name from Eliot before and it made everything real: this was them and it was new and they could be anything they wanted. It woke up something hot and hungry in him. He pulled Eliot in again, more urgently.

Eliot surged up into him, spun and pressed him against the wall, his hands hard and greedy over Hardison’s chest and sides. Hardison’s hands found their way to Eliot’s waist, slid up under his shirt, feeling the yielding warmth over the hard muscle, the ripple of the occasional scar. Eliot gripped his hips tightly and a small, pleading sound escaped Hardison’s throat as he felt the grind.

“We should —” was all he managed to gasp.

“Yeah,” breathed Eliot, and pulled him toward the bedroom.

***

This is the part Alec Hardison remembers for the rest of his life: Eliot leaning over him, braced on one arm, the other hand dragging slowly down his body, his eyes intent, like he doesn’t want to miss anything. He takes his time, agonizingly slow over Alec’s hips, but when he finally wraps his mouth around him it’s with a fierce hunger, like it’s all he’s ever wanted.


	3. Chapter 3

Eliot held Alec’s hand over his own chest; they were both too warm to be any closer but he held it tightly. Alec was dazed and grinning, and Eliot hadn’t known until this moment how badly he wanted to see him like this, sex-drunk and stupid happy and _beautiful,_ sweat tracing inviting lines over the ripples of his chest and stomach.

 _You could have had this long ago,_ came a nagging voice, and _Shut up,_ he answered, _I have it now._ He ran his other hand up and down Alec’s forearm, feeling the shapes under his skin, and Alec laughed and rolled toward him, face wide open and so happy. It was maybe the best thing he’d ever seen in his life.

But Eliot could feel the crash gathering behind his own afterglow. He’d expected it. He was starting to get a decent handle on the ups and downs of his own emotions in this particular arena, so he didn’t take it as a disaster; certainly not as an indication that this had been a mistake. The brown eyes smiled up at him. Definitely not a mistake.

But he didn’t want Alec to see him crash: Alec at least should get to enjoy this untarnished, so he rolled over him and kissed him.

“I have to go,” he said, keeping his face a few inches above Alec’s, kissing him again to try to take out the sting. Alec looked disappointed but not surprised.

“We’re doing this again, right?” he asked, and the flicker of fear in his eyes was a whipcrack across Eliot’s heart.

“Definitely,” he said, and kissed him again, long and slow, to show he meant it. “And soon.”

Alec smiled sleepily, and it was _hard_ to leave him, but Eliot wrenched himself out of bed and put on his clothes. He wanted to be out of there before his smile stopped being genuine, and he just made it.

***

By the time Eliot got home the crash was in full swing, and his _whole this isn’t a disaster, this wasn’t a mistake line_ of thought from before seemed impossibly naive. The fact that he’d had to leave proved that, proved that Eliot was not fit for this kind of relationship and never had been. _Did you see his face when he asked if you’d be doing this again? You’ve been torturing him for months, and now you’ve done the worst thing and given him hope, when you know you can’t live up to your promises._

It was exhausting, this was _exhausting,_ the way he felt like two different people. One person was hopeful, grounded, trusting in Hardison fully and in himself just enough to think this could all be okay. The other person was a nonstop doomsday oracle, telling him starkly all the reasons this was the worst possible idea, insisting the only safe choice was to hole up, harden up, lock himself away. When he was in one headspace the other one seemed trivial and foolish. The hopeful and trusting self held sway most of the time now, but that only made the doomsday oracle much louder and more insistent when it came.

It was best to have something to do while the angry voice railed at him, so Eliot started deep-cleaning his cabinets while running through all the greatest hits.

_You’ll run away eventually and break his heart._

_You’ll drive a wedge between him and Parker and you’ll all end up alone._

_You’ll make a mistake because you’re too invested now, and get them both killed._

_He’ll find out some of the things you’ve done and then he’ll be furious he ever let you touch him._

_You’ll die protecting them and break his heart._

All he could do was white-knuckle through it and hope it would pass this time like it always had before. But he was so tired, and that hour when he’d felt so good seemed ages in the past. Even if the mood passed now, it would come back, again and again, and he was so tired.

A knock sounded on his door, and a second later a text lit his phone. _Can I come in?_

Parker felt it was a gross indignity to actually stand at a door and wait to be let in, but Eliot had been very clear that he a) valued his privacy and b) could not promise a friendly response if he was startled by someone walking into his home. They’d settled on this compromise. He almost ignored the text, but Parker was the only person he could imagine facing at this moment, and the part of his brain that remembered how to hope suggested that ‘not being alone’ was a better choice right now.

 _Fine,_ he texted back, and thirty seconds later she was in his kitchen, holding a bag of popcorn kernels and a DVD of _Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid._

“Shouldn’t you be with him?” Eliot growled.

“He’s happy.”

 _Happy because you got away before you could make him sad._ “Great, so go be happy with him.”

Parker narrowed her eyes. “That’s not how this works.”

“No one knows how this works. No one knows _if_ this works.”

“I know you’re going to make me caramel corn and we’re going to watch a movie.”

“You know that, do you?”

“Yep!” The more growly he got the more cheerfully she answered.

“I don’t get a say?”

“Well, what do you think we should do?”

“I’m cleaning my cabinets.” He pointed to the pile of pots on the counter that he’d emptied out of one open cabinet.

Parker put her whole head and shoulders into the cabinet, then re-emerged. “Looks clean!” Of course it was, he’d just finished that one. “And you’ve got your popcorn pan out already.” She hopped up on the island and waited.

It wasn’t an argument and they both knew it. The evening was gonna go however Parker wanted it to. He pushed back because it relieved some of the angry pressure under his ribs: he could be as surly and stubborn as he wanted and she wouldn’t let him get away with it.

Popcorn and caramel both needed full attention so they wouldn’t burn. He stirred and watched, focused on the sound of popping kernels, the bubbling of brown sugar and butter, feeling Parker at his back the whole time. It was hard to keep up a parade of hateful thoughts while also watching caramel deepen in color, waiting for the exact right moment to pull it off the heat. It was hard to believe he was a time bomb rigged to destroy their family from the inside while he was handing Parker a sticky-sweet spatula to lick and watching her eyes crinkle.

Parker wedged herself comfortably under his arm as they sat down to start the movie, and he held up for a minute before hitting play.

“Parker.”

She looked up at him inquiringly, and then he was stuck. What he wanted to say was something like, _How is this not weird for you?_ Something like, _I just had sex with your boyfriend, how is this comfortable and fine?_ But it _was_ comfortable, and it _was_ fine, and he could already see the kind of pitying, indulgent look she’d give him if he asked, like she understood he had the limitation of sometimes thinking like a normal person.

So he just said, “This is how it works, huh?”

She nodded. “I think so. It’s good, right?”

 _Good_ still felt a long way away. But he felt safe. He didn’t have to worry about stopping his own fall.

“We’re good,” he answered, and she settled back against him.

He hit play. Parker’s elbows were sharp in his ribs every time she reached for more caramel corn. He felt the weight of her head on his chest with every breath. The rest of the pressure inside him floated away slowly, minute by minute.

Parker ate the entire bowl of caramel corn and then fell asleep on him before the end of the movie. She only stirred a little when it was over, so he settled her on the couch and put a blanket over her.

Before going to his own room, he touched her forehead lightly and whispered, “Thanks.”

“I got you,” she murmured, and rolled to her side to go back to sleep.

***

It was a little like waking up after a big fight. Eliot lay in bed the next morning and took inventory, looking for places that were sore or out of joint so he’d know what he was dealing with. Finally did it, and how did he feel now?

Calm, mostly he felt calm, which was a little astonishing. It was like the morning after a storm: things just felt bright and settled. Except his face seemed to have its own opinion, because he kept catching himself smiling so wide his cheeks hurt.

Parker was still on the couch when he went out into the living room, lying back and fiddling with one of the locks Eliot and Hardison both stashed in drawers around their homes — a necessary defense when you had a Parker coming over who might otherwise get bored and do God knows what.

“Sleep okay?” he asked.

“Yep — you?”

“Yeah, I did,” he said, rubbing the back of his head, and there was that grin again, he couldn’t seem to contain it.

What they should probably do was get over to the brewpub, get right back into the normal routine, prove that this wasn’t going to change anything. But his mouth also seemed to have its own ideas. “What do you think about taking the morning off, getting Hardison to come over and have breakfast before we get to work?”

“Pancakes?” she asked.

“I was thinking a fritatta.” She looked at him brightly until he sighed. That look was why he’d started keeping extra giant jugs of maple syrup in his pantry, the real stuff, not any watered-down corn syrup nonsense. Parker might not care about the difference, but he did. “And pancakes.”

“Sounds great!”

“You wanna text him to come over?”

“You do it.” She went back to her lock.

Eliot got his phone, keeping his back to her because he had a feeling his face was doing something really goofy-looking. He felt jittery, happy-jittery, which was ridiculous because it was Alec Hardison, who he’d seen nearly every day of his life for the last five years.

 _Wanna come over for breakfast? Parker’s already here._ Hardison might not even be awake yet, but that would give him time to get the fritatta in before starting on pancakes.

 _On my way in five._ The answer came in before he’d even set the phone down.

He was still chopping basil when Hardison got there. Hardison paused for half a second in the doorway, then went to the living room and kissed Parker good morning. “You should kiss Eliot,” she said, loud enough that Eliot could hear.

“Not while he’s holding a knife,” said Hardison. “That’s the rule.”

“Oh,” she said. “Good rule.”

“The knife isn’t a metaphor for anything,” Eliot yelled from the kitchen, and then thought he’d better just go in there and straighten it out. He walked over to Hardison where he was half-sitting on the arm of the couch. “It’s just practical. Don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Never said it was a metaphor,” said Hardison, searching his face, a little wary. Eliot came right up between his legs.

“Well it’s not,” he said.

“Just practical,” Hardison said, barely breathing as Eliot leaned closer.

“Exactly,” Eliot whispered, then kissed him. He felt something tight unspooling in Hardison. _Relief,_ he thought, but the guilt didn’t sting because he had a dozen ideas for how to make it up to him.

He started with the toughest one. “Hey. I wanna say something.”

“Okay,” said Hardison, wary again.

The very next time he saw that worry line above the eyebrow, he was gonna smooth it away with his thumb, but Hardison needed words now. “I’ve got — you know I’ve got stuff I deal with. I might freak out sometimes. I might need to get away for a little bit. But I’m always coming back. That’s a promise.” He slid his hand down to rest, palm in, against the other man’s chest. “I’m in this. All the way.”

Hardison’s smile was like sunrise. Parker leaped up on the couch behind him and tackle-hugged them both. Eliot found himself with his face wedged awkwardly against Hardison’s shoulder, Hardison’s arms wrapped all the way around him and Parker’s reaching around to squeeze his shoulders. Any minute now she was going to knock all three of them to the ground.

He didn’t think he’d ever been so happy.


End file.
